Yoann Richomme’s Paprec Arkéa team took two points for leading through the Leg 5 Scoring Gate ahead of Team Allagrande Mapei Racing in second.
Fresh Mediterranean breezes that arrived overnight boosted The Ocean Race Europe fleet’s progress south on the second day of the fifth leg of the European tour (Tuesday 9 September).
The seven international four-person, mixed-gender IMOCA crews had been making slow progress in ultra-light winds since leaving Genoa, Italy on Sunday afternoon on the 1,600-nautical-mile passage to Boka Bay in Montenegro after hugging the coast to pass France’s Nice and St Tropez overnight.
However, the arrival of an eight to 10 knot northwesterly wind around 0230 CEST on Tuesday morning finally gave the leaders — Yoann Richomme’s French-entry Paprec Arkéa, Paul Meilhat’s overall-race-leading Biotherm (FRA), Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia (GER) and Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei Racing (ITA) — an opportunity to turn their bows south for the first time.
Sailing downwind in the building breeze at speeds of up to 32 knots at times, this foursome made rapid progress towards the Leg 5 Scoring Gate at the latitude of Sardinia’s Santo Stefano.
It was the Paprec Arkéa crew who did best out of the drag race south, arriving at the gate at 07:33:24 to collect two bonus points, and only just under a minute ahead of Allagrande Mapei, who picked up a single point for second place.
Meanwhile, it was a challenging time for the remaining three boats — Rosalin Kuiper’s Swiss-flagged Team Holcim-PRB, Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Positive (led for this leg by Britain’s Pip Hare) and Alan Roura’s Team AMAALA (SUI/KSA) — who missed out on catching the breeze as early as the rest and could only watch the leading quartet slip away on the tracker as they remained wallowing in a wind hole.
“It’s frustrating,” said Lincoln Dews aboard the Canadian boat on Tuesday morning. “We were a little bit slower yesterday afternoon and a few miles behind turned into 30 miles. It’s amazing how fast these boats are when they get going.”
At 1330 CEST today just six miles separated the leading four — Paprec Arkéa, Mapei, Biotherm, Malizia — as they passed west of the Spanish island of Menorca, with Holcim 12 miles behind in fifth. Canada Ocean Racing sat in sixth, 82 nautical miles off the lead, with Team Amaala in seventh, a further 61nm back and still shy of the Scoring Gate latitude.
Those distances have only extended as the day’s progressed, while at the front, Team Malizia and Biotherm — the latter surviving broken-winch drama — leapfrogged into first and second place respectively.
On the chasing Team Holcim-PRB, skipper Kuiper was clearly not happy to be playing catch-up. But with up to six more days of racing ahead, she said she and her crew will keep fighting to get back into contention.
Team Holcim-PRB skipper Rosalin Kuiper is not a happy camper | Credit: Anne Beaugé/The Ocean Race
“It’s nice to be fast again but the fleet is far ahead so we have to catch up a lot,” she said. “We are going to work hard to catch up on the fleet. I wish we were ahead, but it is like it is, so we will try to keep the positivity and go.”
Likewise, on Canada Ocean Racing, Dews said the crew were upbeat and looking for opportunities to close down the leaders as quickly as possible. With more volatile weather expected, nobody would bet against those opportunities presenting themselves.
“It looks like we have finally got back into the pressure that everyone else got earlier today,” said Dews. “So hopefully they park up tonight and we can go hunting.”
On Allagrande Mapei, currently duelling Paprec Arkéa for third, skipper Beccaria (ITA) was pleased to be in the breeze and in the leading pack — but warned of more complex weather ahead.
“It’s better with some wind, finally the miles are starting to decrease,” he said. “For now, we can enjoy some downwind sailing, but it is not going to last. It’s going to be stormy, no wind, waves — very complicated.”
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